A Blogger Walks Into A Drugstore…

Ok, three drugstores. One of them multiple times. It is possible that I went a little overboard on the couponing this week. But as I now have enough of my faaavorite paper towels (Viva, they are the Rolls Royce of paper towels, thank you Walgreens for the great deal on those this week!) to last me for a couple months and enough laundry detergent for about the next year (at the rate I do laundry – hey I am saving it up for when my new Frigidaire washer & dryer arrive in May!) maybe I will take this week off. 🙂 Here are a few of the things I got!

Stop #1 CVS: My friend Jen and I went in, since I am her coupon guru and she is my apprentice. It was lots of fun, we made friends with the new manager at my fave store, and I got some sweet deals!

CVS $2.63, got back 8 ECB

Huggies box diapers $19.99
2 Excedrin $2.50 each
CVS pain relief $2
SoftSoap body wash $4.99
Total = $31.98

Coupons:
CVS $5/$30 email coupon
$2 Huggies printable coupon
$4 off Huggies big box diapers CVS CRT
Two $2 off Excedrin printable coupons
$3/2 Excedrin CVS email coupon
$.75 cents off SoftSoap printable coupon
$1 off any body wash CVS CRT
total = $14.23
I paid with 12-ish extra care buck and paid $2.63 cash including tax, and got back 8 ECB, 4 for the diapers and 4 for the body wash. YAY!!!

Next stop, Rite Aid! I am recently love, love loving Rite Aid. They have great printable coupons available through their Video Values program where you watch short commercials and get to print high-value coupons. SCORE!

Rite Aid $7.49 will get back $6 in rebates

2 Suave shampoo/conditioner $1.99 each
2 Carefree pantiliners .99 each
2 Nivea lip balm .99 each
Tampax $2.99 each
Satin care shave gel $1.99
Listerine pocketpaks $3.99
Garnier styler $2.99 (one of my fave hair products, I have been waiting for a sale for forever!)
$19.90

Coupons:
Rite Aid $3/$15 printable coupon
$1/2 Suave manu coupon
$2 off Carefree Rite Aid video values coupon
$1/2 Carefree manu coupon
$1 off Garnier Rite Aid video values coupon
$1 off Garnier manu coupon
$1 off Tampax manu coupon
50 cents off Listerine manu coupon
99 cents (BOGO free) Nivea lip balm coupon

Total = $8.41 – paid in cash and I will get $6 single check rebate, 1 for the Suave, 1 for the Tampax, 3 for the Listerine and 1 for the Gillette shave gel. 🙂

Finally, WALGREENS. Now I will tell you that Walgreens is my THIRD-favorite drugstore. However I was in there about 80 bajillion times this week because they had some sweet deals I could not pass up. And I CAN BE BOUGHT. I do the coupon shopping for my BFF Luanne (because she is coupon challenged, and I LOVE her) and I went in a couple times to load her family up on toilet paper, paper towels (VIVA!!), laundry detergent, Kleenex, and feminine care products (she has two daughters, they need their own Fort Kotex) and I did a few transactions for myself as well (Viva, Kleenex, laundry detergent, clearance diapers, lots of free plus overage Tylenol PM!) Here’s a couple examples:

4 bottles of Purex FREE & tissues less than 30 cents each!

2 Purex BOGO free, $5.99
6 Kleenex, BOGO free $2.19 (for two)
total = $12.56
coupons:
BOGO Free Purex – $5.99
two 50 cents off 3 Kleenex – $1
total = $5.57 and I got back 3 register rewards for buying the Kleenex, yippee!

Then, much to my frugal delight, I made a magical discovery in the baby aisle at Walgreens. They had some sizes of Walgreens brand jumbo pack diapers clearanced to $2.29. YES, I SAID $2.29 FOR A JUMBO PACK!! I about died of nerdy happiness. I got SIX packs as I have some peeps to get baby gifts for. I used several register rewards I had accumulated through the weeks and paid less than $5 total out of pocket. WHEEEE!! Oh, and I got two more bottles of Purex, (pictured with the kleenex above), WHAT UP!? Somebody give me a high five!

found diapers on clearance at Walgreens $2.29 for a jumbo pack!

Ok, that’s all for me this week. From Fort Kotex and the Viva Palace, I bid you happy couponing!

Wanna see some more sweet deals?? Check out the round-up at Shopping SUperstars at the Thrifty Mama’s place!

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Wax On, Wax Off

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Recently I’ve been teaching my friend Jen (and to a lesser extent Cortney, really all I do is put together scenarios for her ’cause she already knows how, she just looooves it when I tell her what to do. Don’t ya Ney-Ney??) to COUPON. Jen is my second protege, big PROPS to my friend Elizabeth who is now a Mariah Carey-esque Butterfly and has her own wings to fly and the coupon binder to match. More props to Elizabeth because unlike Mariah, she has still managed to spread her wings and fly while wearing age-appropriate clothing that actually clothes her body. But anyhoo. What was I saying? Oh yes…

Now if you read this here mess blog often, you know I loves me some coupons, some drugstore rebate programs, and some grocery store sales! I have been thinking about it, as I’ve been Jen’s coupon Mr. Miyagi and she’s been my Daniel-san, why do I LOVE it so much? Not just the scoring free diapers, wipes, razors, etc. or “turning a profit” in CVS bucks or Rite Aid rebates – why do I love the process? I come from a family of teachers and always said I would be a terrible teacher, but I think I am pretty good at teaching coupons. And I LOVE doing it. Especially the hands-on lessons where we go to the store together!

I guess it just feels good to be good at something. There is not much in my adult life I have been really good at and also enjoyed. When I was working, I was a good employee, maybe even good at my job(s), but I didn’t enjoy it. It was stressful. Sharing couponing, well, that’s just fun. Giving away stuff that didn’t cost you anything to people who need it = fun. Helping a mom like you stretch her family’s tight budget = fun. Amazing your cashier = fun. Making friends with your cashier who you see once or twice a week = fun. Yesterday I freaking sang “Happy Birthday” to one of my cashiers at CVS (What up, Robin!!) because she’s AWESOME and it was her birthday and I bet none of her other customers was gonna do it!

So, I guess what I’m saying is: registration for Mr. Miyagi’s coupon training school of Savings and General Weirdness is open. Singing not required. But I might make you wax my car.

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I am like the Tiger Woods of the Drugstore Game

I haven’t written about my love of coupons and my lust for sweet deals in quite awhile, and I decided it was time to rectify that. Recently, despite some setbacks in the CVS area, (one of my fave stores no longer takes competitor coupons and the other one no longer takes internet-printed competitor coupons!) I have kind of ramped up my couponing. I am now quite proficient at Rite Aid’s single check rebates program and I’ve been working the Walgreens register rewards a wee bit as well (a lot bit this week!) And this week I got a sweeeeeeeeet deal on Venus razors and Olay body wash at Target and I now have $15 of Target gift cards burning a hole in my pocket!

And lucky for me, Walgreens had my *favorite* Glade soy candles on clearance this week! The little ones were just $1.74 each and I had several $3/2 coupons! Soy candles for 24 cents each? Yes, please!

Glade Soy Candles for 24 cents each? Yes, please!

I also got paid $1.50 (each) to buy 2 bottles of Dove Men’s body wash at Walgreens, (gotta keep the hubs smelling fresh!) and got a few packs of Huggies diapers for about $2.50 a pack, got some “feminine hygiene” products for about 75 cents a box, and still have some register rewards to spend. WHEEEE!!

At Rite Aid, I have been buying P&G products with coupons for a couple of weeks to get a Visa Gift card from P&G after rebate. Here’s what I got this week:

Paid about $6 for this including tax and getting back $2 plus a gift card!

4 packs of Stayfree $1.99 each
Fusion razor $7.99
Gillette Satin Care $1.49
NyQuil $3.50
Total = $20.94

Coupons:
$5/$20 Rite Aid coupon
$4 off Fusion Razor q
$.55 of Gillette q
$1.50 off NyQuil q
B1G1 free Stayfree q
Three $1 off Stayfree q’s (peelie on package! score!)

Total = 4.90
With tax I paid $6.54, and I’ll get back $1 for the Gillette, $1 for the NyQuil, and because of earlier spending plus this order, a $15 Visa gift card from P&G. LOVE IT!!!

I found some more coupons hidden in my coupon binder and went back later and got 2 more packages of Stayfree, a package of Carefree liners, yet another Dove Men’s bodywash (they were out of them at the first Rite Aid) and a Nivea women’s body wash, and paid $4.23 including tax, and will get back a $4 rebate for the Dove. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Also, I now have enough feminine hygiene items to last until menopause!! It’s like Fort Kotex in my bathroom cabinet!

All of this drugstore fun combined with the Daytona Event promotion at Kroger this week, and I was truly in coupon heaven! I wish I had taken pictures of all my purchases this week so Emily could well & truly make fun of me, but you’ll have to take my word for it! It was EPIC!

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